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There Are Many Ways To Track A Hurricane, But They All Look Like Spaghetti To Me

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By WALT BELCHER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 19, 2008

The cone of uncertainty was filled with all sorts of paths that Tropical Storm Fay could travel.

On Monday afternoon, the so-called "spaghetti" models that were being displayed on television newscasts looked like someone had slapped the spaghetti against the wall and it was dribbling down everywhere.

The lines alternated with large whirling buzz saw graphics that projected the most likely path for Fay - and then were large swirling blobs of red and yellow that seemed to be devouring Florida.
Weather coverage has become so colorful and dramatic in the computer age. It's a science, and yet it's not a precise science.

"People think we have all the answers but there are so many variables that nothing is certain," said WFLA meteorologist Steve Jerve as he studied a bank of TV monitors displaying various images of Fay and its possible path. "Should we even be showing them on the air," he said. "I don't know. The only thing we can do is try to draw a consensus of where it might be headed."

There was one spaghetti line that resembled something a 6-year-old might draw. It went up from the Keys across the state, jutted out into the Atlantic, made a sharp left, sharp right and then left again, forming an arrow-head on the map before doubling back across the state and into the Gulf.

Jerve doesn't think that will happen. "Different computer models analyze and initialize differently, and at different times work with different parameters," he said.

The National Weather Service uses about 20 computer models to try to determine the track and the intensity. And just about every TV station has its own computer model.

These forecast models range from fairly simple programs, which can be run in a few seconds, to more complex ones that require hours on a supercomputer. "Numerical models" use high-speed computers to solve the physical equations of motion governing the atmosphere.

The spaghetti models are based on algorithms, and each interprets the data differently, Jerve says.

He says the National Hurricane Center likes the GFDL model. That stands for Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, "a limited-area, grid-point model" that I won't try to explain because it would make my head explode.

Jerve also likes WFLA's VIPIR model. And I just trust that experts like Jerve or Paul Dellegatto at WTVT, Channel 13, Denis Phillips at WFTS or Mike Clay at Bay News 9 know how to interpret this stuff.

"These are just computer models, and they can only do so much," Jerve cautions. "There is so much that we can't see, and predicting a storm's intensity is very difficult

"I can understand how people can get frustrated thinking that we have all the answers, but we can tell them exactly when or where the hurricane will hit," he says. "We're just as frustrated, and we're doing the best we can."

And he says that even the wild and crazy projection for Fay could happen because almost every storm jumps off the consensus path at some point.

SPLITSVILLE REDUX: The Banana Splits are making a comeback. The four costumed characters, Fleegle (a dog), Drooper (a lion), Bingo (a gorilla) and Snorky (an elephant) will join The Cartoon Network on Sept. 2.

The former stars of a Saturday morning kids show, "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" (1968-70) will be appearing in 130 shorts and music videos that will be sprinkled throughout each day between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Also coming back is their memorable "Tra La La" theme song. And a new CD and DVD, "Go Bananas Your Way," features 13 new Banana Splits pop and rock songs and music videos. Check it out at www.bananasplits.com.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

Eureka, 9 p.m., Sci-Fi

It's "Groundhog Day" for Sheriff Carter as his day seems to be repeating in a continuous loop.

Escape to Dreamland: The Story of the Tamiami Trail, 8 p.m., WEDU, Channel 3

Check out this colorful history of the 274 mile road (U.S. 41) that cuts through the Everglades.

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